


making love to the camera

by transgenicveins



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Barebacking, But also, Dirty Talk, Little bit of angst, M/M, a lot a lot of pretentious authors, oversensitisation, pornstar!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:37:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transgenicveins/pseuds/transgenicveins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"that's how Liam makes him feel - like there's something between them</i> bigger <i>than the rest of the world."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	making love to the camera

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posting, with big love to cat and sarah for listening to me whine about this for forever and a day

When Zayn was sixteen, he read that ‘the golden rule is that there are no golden rules’, and he thinks of that quote all through high school until he’s eighteen and disillusioned and decides George Bernard Shaw didn’t know _anything_ about the real world.

(later, he’ll find out that Shaw won a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize in Literature and an Oscar before he turned fifty, and maybe Zayn should have listened to him instead of the pessimism of adolescence.

But not yet.)

So when he’s accepted into the University College of London, he sets himself Three Rules. With absolutely no exception or asterisk or _unless_ , he (one) is not allowed to pine over some uni boy like a virgin in heat; (two) will never _ever_ read Shakespeare again after he cried for three hours over Mercutio’s death in high school; and (three) will not be reduced to _free verse_.

Because he’s tattooed and cynical and studying _European Literature_ and three seconds from making the transition from ‘brooding’ to ‘tragic’ and—

— no—

— he is not the Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester of this story.

 

||

 

( _he is not a footnote in his own fucking happiness_ )

 

||

 

On-campus living is an absolute nightmare which Danny dedicates too many of their last nights together discussing in excruciating detail, all of which end the same way—

(“ _I will not let you suffer, Z, I did not spend all weekend at a_ graduation party _for you to throw away this phone number.”_ )

— until he caves and calls Harry Styles, who talks like he’s just deep-throated and says ‘ _Zayn means beautiful in Arabic, right?’_ in this flirtatious voice he’s a little too familiar with.

He meets his four roommates on the first Friday of term in a big, airy loft with windows for walls and bolted steel for doors and a shiny new kitchen. Harry’s decidedly _intense_ and Niall’s all laughter and Louis is this crazy embodiment of summer, he thinks, with tanned skin and eyes like the sky.

The hallway is exposed brick and dark floorboards but Zayn forgets how _pretentiously hipster_ his life’s become when he finds a boy shuffling all the furniture. He’s wearing half a suit (sleeves rolled to his elbows, buttons haphazardly undone) and looks like something out of Zayn’s dreams, with five o’clock stubble and a buzz cut and Usher in the background.

Zayn stares at the tension captured in tanned arms and the gentle twist of foreign lips, reaching for the other end of the table the boy’s lifting. “Hey,” he says, just over the music, “I’m Zayn and we’re sharing a kitchen.”

He smiles brilliantly and _wow, he’s almost a traffic hazard_. “The literature student?” he says, readjusting his grip to shake Zayn’s hand. His grip is tight and his thumb catches over Zayn’s knuckles. “Liam Payne. I’m studying business and losing years off my life with every passing number.”

“Sounds _dreadful,_ ” he teases, and Liam has big brown eyes that crinkle when he laughs. The table is crooked when they set it down. “What is it we’re doing?”

Liam looks a little abashed and grins into his shoulder. “We’re moving all the furniture to the right so the others stub their toes,” he says sheepishly. “It’s payback for dying my shirt pink.”

“You pull it off,” Zayn says – because it’s the truth – and laughs when Liam’s cheeks burn. “Want help?”

The music fades out halfway through, leaving silence and the sounds of the city all around. Zayn doesn’t notice, though, because Liam doesn’t ask about his tattoos and instead talks about worst lectures and horrible nightmares and best memories.

_Spring_ , he thinks. Liam’s like spring. With sunshine behind his eyes and that earthy voice and those strong hands for creating something new.

(it’s a little telling, really, a sign he doesn’t notice yet, because spring’s always been his favourite season)

And that night, between cold sheets which won’t warm up, he thinks he’s a little in love with Niall’s booming laugh and Louis’ frankly _alive_ eyes and the way Harry nuzzles into the crook of his neck over tea.

But that first smile of Liam’s, with the sharp jaw line and loose lips and crinkly eyes, is the only thing on his mind.

 

||

 

(later – almost a week later – he learns that Liam is actually all sex. He’s cock and strong arms and a filthy mouth, with blowjob lips and a wicked smile to distract from the press of fingertips along his spine. It’s a total deception and a juxtaposition and it’s _incredible,_ how he’s got everybody fooled.)

 

||

 

(belatedly, he’ll realise that Liam’s all warmth, like that ache stinging your skin after lying in the sun too long or the first breath of fresh air after a flight or even the words ‘ _I’m proud’_ in any context.

But not yet.)

 

||

 

A fortnight into term and Zayn’s gained a reputation, one that makes him feel dirty and hollow. He’s called all kinds of things like mysterious and exotic and _dark_ , as though he’s forbidden.

(dangerous, even)

It reminds him of high school and that _feeling_ which characterised his senior year, like his skin is too tight around his body, sets an ache in his bones. Acidity coats his lips because it’s not that the rumours are terrible, it’s that they’re so easily believed. Like it’s feasible that he would burn lines of poetry into a hooker’s skin, or get off while some boy is bleeding and crying and humiliated, just because Bret Easton Ellis wrote about it.

He’s a tornado when he comes home, three hours later, after a girl sprawls over his lap and whispers things that turn his blood cold. He accepts the beer Niall offers and the strange threeway cuddle Harry and Louis draw him into before stomping into his bedroom.

Except it’s not his room, it’s Liam’s, with a Liam to match. He’s stretched across his bed with his laptop anchored on hips, wearing chinos and a t-shirt that’s tight all over. The floor is covered by a king mattress on a low, minimalist bedframe with a few dozen throw pillows filling in the spaces between.

It kind of looks – _feels_ – more like home than anything Zayn’s seen in years.

Liam tugs out his headphones when the door’s shoved open and looks at Zayn like he’s staring at his organs, instead. He piles up pillows without hesitation and creates this little nest for Zayn, right beside him.

“So you’re a Marvel boy, right?” he asks, browsing through his tabs while Zayn curls up, knocks against his ankles and slots his hip against Liam’s waist. “Trick question, of course you are. The new trailer for Iron Man 3 leaked today. We’ll start there.”

 

||

 

Sharing headphones is as over-romanticised as he remembers from the tenth grade, but there’s something tender about Liam speaking in hushed tones about the cinematography and comic canon with only centimetres between them.

They don’t jump apart when the others come in with pizza covered in every topping (because they don’t know each other’s favourites, yet). Instead, they press close and nudge shoulders whenever it feels right.

“So,” Harry says, a mouthful of pizza with his feet in Niall’s lap and an arm around Louis’ shoulders and no space between the three of them. Zayn considers commenting on it, but then Liam swipes some grease off his cheek with tanned fingers and he decides otherwise. “I’m thinking of psychology.”

Louis laughs, affectionate, and steals all Harry’s pepperoni. “I thought you were in psych already.”

“I’m doing _commerce,_ ” he scowls.

“But it was physiotherapy last week,” Liam offers, “and didn’t you apply for engineering on Wednesday?”

Harry jabs him in the ribs and Liam presses into Zayn from the momentum and that pressure is somehow so, so much _louder_ than the laughter of five boys.

They’re drowsy, afterwards, and Zayn’s absolutely incapable of looking away when Liam’s so pliant and happy, so he settles between the sheets and falls asleep when Liam turns out the light.

 

||

 

In sixth form, Zayn studied French romanticism while the rest of his class read Robert Frost. Arthur Rimbaud – a libertine who characterised surrealism in imagery for the next century – was his favourite.  He described orbits and gravitational pulls and a thousand other things to explain how two people could share a bed and always awake tangled together.

There are also twelve dozen movies where sexual tension stems from an _absolutely unavoidable_ night in bed together, and authors who exploit that feeling, and millions of songs about _here in your embrace_ , so, really, society has predisposed Zayn to expect those strong arms around his torso, or maybe a casual press of their ankles together.

Their reality, though, is waking up on opposite sides of the bed with achingly cold skin. Zayn’s spread out on his stomach like he’s eager for it and he’s not sure what he expects when he opens his eyes, but Liam with a sleepy smile and heat flushing his bare chest pink certainly isn’t _predictable_.

“Morning,” Liam says, and Zayn will never forget the way his voice sounds. Maybe being a literary cliché would be preferable to Liam’s eyes tracing all his tattoos (even the one that disappears beneath his waistband) like a promise.

Zayn shuffles closer and thinks in poetry (Frost, Auden, Yeats) when Liam succumbs to goosebumps at their touching skin. They watch each other and everything is wintry when Liam flutters his eyelashes, like he’s teasing, and kisses him.

It should feel like a hurricane, with shiny lips and a saccharine taste, but Liam’s lovely with him like none of his first kisses have been. He brushes their lips together until Zayn whimpers at the touch and uses his tongue like an anaesthetic instead of a weapon and just _kisses_ him in a way that feels like worship.

They grin when they separate – a little more aware than they were before – and Liam glances at his eyes, wrists, lips, kisses him hard, and crawls out of bed before he can kiss back.

 

||

 

They’re sharing a plate of scrambled eggs over the kitchen counter when Liam bumps their hips together and knocks his fork away.

“ _So_ ,” Liam says, piling eggs and hot sauce and pepper onto a piece of hot toast and folding it up. He looks a little embarrassed but smiles beatifically when Zayn takes a bite. “Are we going to talk about it?”

Zayn shakes his head and feeds him a forkful. Grease stains Liam’s lips a shiny pink. “We don’t need to,” he says, and Liam looks so relieved it makes his heart ache. “Instead you can tell me why you’re wasting away in business.”

He grins and absently adds milk to Zayn’s coffee, even though he’s had two cups black already, just to calm him down. “I want to be a firefighter,” he says. Zayn stutters over the mental image. “I need a degree first, though, and an in-between—”

_I could be your in-between_ , he thinks, but instead peels off the crusts and feeds them to Liam. “Boys or girls?”

Liam’s eyelashes flutter and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. “Boys,” he breathes, pressing a little closer until their bare ankles knock, “London or home?”

“Right here,” he says without thinking, and it’s so worth the rough laugh that echoes through the kitchen.

Liam’s spare hand absently brushes against his sweatpants. “Giving or receiving?” he asks as he outlines Zayn’s cock, smirks at the stain of precome on the cotton.

The catch of metal against Liam’s chapped lips and the brush of thumb over the head of his cock leave Zayn a little dizzy. “Receiving,” he says automatically, imagining being bent over the table, bitten along his spine, pressed against the shelves of the pantry.

Liam grins like it’s the answer he wanted and drops to his knees with lips dragging along Zayn’s bare chest. He mouths at the Chinese symbol on his hip and traces the shaft with his tongue, tugging his sweatpants down with this _filthy_ noise of achievement and happiness.

Liam’s shamefully and shamelessly good at sucking cock. His lips stretch wide and gorgeous around the shaft and his tongue playfully strokes the underside and his teeth graze against the veins whenever he pulls off. He whispers things like ‘ _you taste like fucking heaven’_ and ‘ _c’mon, be rough, you can fuck me up’_ , as though Zayn needs it to get off. Really, the way Liam sits back on his heels and slacks his jaw and fucking _takes it_ , even when Zayn stutters his hips and thrusts in too deep, is hot enough to burn him up.

That’s nothing in comparison to the sight of Liam’s hand stuffed down his boxers, or the peaks of a thick and uncut cock between the silk, or the way he moans every time Zayn touches him. _That’s_ what makes him breathless and he’s close, so close it’s curling up his spine, when Liam pulls right off.

“Are you alright?” he asks, a little confused, with swollen lips and flushed cheeks. His fingers are still grazing over his own cock and Zayn whines at the sight and presses him back down a little too rough.

Liam freezes with Zayn’s cock at the back of his throat and comes all over his fist. He’s pliant, afterwards, and it only takes a feeble hollowing of his cheeks for Zayn to arch his spine and shake against the cupboards.

He blacks out, and when he refocuses, Liam’s licking his thighs with his forehead up against his stomach and a sweet smile on his lips. Zayn strokes his cheek and sucks Liam’s messy fingers clean and there’s a heartbeat where everything stills, before footsteps echo in the hall.

They play oblivious until Harry stumbles out with three mugs of coffee and then Liam’s pressing him into the table, curling fingers underneath his thighs, and sharing the taste of their come while their coffee goes cold.

 

||

 

They can’t quite keep their hands off each other at dinner that night. Liam’s fingers are heavy and strong on his thigh and Zayn wriggles his toes against the delicate arch of bare feet and every few bites Liam moans like his steak is an orgasm.

And worse, it’s _working_ , and Zayn’s grinding into his palm and Liam’s mumbling shameless words into his neck and he’s about to wriggle beneath the table and swallow him to the root when—

“ _Hot_ ,” Louis says, lips stretched into a grin around his beer bottle, “you’re better than porn.”

Liam’s eyes widen and he looks like he might interrupt when Harry laughs hard enough to echo. “Unlikely,” he says, “Zayn comes like Charlie Chaplin.”

He buries his blush in the crook of Liam’s neck and nips the skin red until it swears to bruise tomorrow. “Your mouth is a nirvana,” he says, because it’s easier than admitting ‘ _I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hear’_.

The look in Liam’s eyes hints that he knows, anyway. Fingers tangle in his hair and Liam twists his whole body to create a hollow for Zayn to hide in. “I’m going to get you loud,” he whispers, just loud enough for everyone to hear, “you don’t need to hold back with me, I love your pretty mouth, I’m going to make you _scream—_ ”

(they make it through dessert but barely, with exaggerated moans from the other side of the table and Liam’s tongue tracing the shell of his ear in a way that gets him impatient between the sheets an hour later)

 

||

 

(Liam’s _determined_ , afterwards. It takes all night and by dawn, their lips are chapped and Zayn’s nerves twitch at the slightest breeze and Liam’s careful hands press calculated fingerprints all over his body.

He’s over-sensitised and weak and so desperate for _just one last time, Li, please, please, please_ , as he arches off the mattress and breathes out a loud whine to match.

A smile presses against his bruised neck and, after they come with shuddering breaths and shaking limbs, Liam radiates smugness so thick it diffuses into his cells, too.)

 

||

 

Rule three is broken a month into term. He’s on Liam’s bed – _their_ bed, he corrects, since his books are stacked on the dresser and he has a _side_ – writing notes on characterisation in Dickens’ _David Copperfield_ with his feet in Liam’s lap and the radio on low.

Liam alternates between stealing sips of his coffee and highlighting one of his dreadfully heavy textbooks. He’s wearing Zayn’s glasses _because if you wear them I’ll get nothing done and yes that is a bad thing, you twat_ and his thighs tense in time with the music to press against the arch of Zayn’s foot and it hits him, it hits him like a fucking truck, so hard he doesn’t _care_ how shitty that simile is. T.S Eliot and Walt Whitman and even fucking _Carl Sandburg_ suddenly make sense because he’s so overwhelmed by the need to write about Liam in fractured, pulsing lines, with no rhythm or order.

(that’s how Liam makes him feel – like there’s something between them _bigger_ than the rest of the world)

(like time spent apart isn’t time worthwhile)

He scribbles out _be gentle,_

_be rough with my body, but be_

_gentle_

_with me._

and a dozen other non-sequitur lines until the buzz in his fingertips subdues.

The sun is heavy in the sky when he glances up. Liam looks a little helpless and smiles with sugar on his tongue. “I was wrong,” he says, scraping nails against the inside of Zayn’s thigh, just under the hem of his shorts. He squirms at the touch. “You don’t need the glasses to be a distraction.”

He groans and Liam uses the distraction to palm at his crotch. “Horrible,” Zayn laughs. “Tragic. _Monstrous—_ ”

Liam huffs out a laugh and their textbooks are shoved to the floor as he wriggles up to bite at his jaw. “That last one was just a reference to my cock,” he teases between kisses, nipping at his jaw.

He whispers a ‘ _caught me’_ and loses himself in the sugary brush of lips and the spicy hints of Cambodian coffee on Liam’s tongue. They’re desperate and grinding when Harry thumps on the door, and the shameless noise Liam makes at the interruption sets his skin on _fire_.

“We _can_ hear you,” Harry scowls, but Liam’s lips are bruised and his eyes are bright and Zayn doesn’t want to stop kissing him if it means that smile will disappear.

It’s a tangle of limbs as Liam tries to hide his blush in the pillows and Zayn crawls on top to straddle his hips. “Then leave,” he yells back, but he’s too distracted by the slight hitch of Liam’s hips to listen to the reply. Instead, he grinds down and whispers, “hey, remember this morning—”

“When I thanked you for breakfast,” Liam says, all cocky, like this is more familiar than sweet kisses, “with three fingers in your arse and my tongue against your lips?”

He flushes at the memory and clumsily shoves down their pants until he can flicker a thumb over Liam’s foreskin. “And what I said afterwards?”

(“ _please please_ please _Liam I’m gaping for you don’t you want to fuck me don’t you want to slide in all easy?”_ )

Liam’s lips twist in affection as he curls an arm around his waist. “Is that on offer?” he asks. He kisses along Zayn’s stubble-stained jaw as they lazily kick off their jeans, tensing like he’s preparing to ambush Zayn’s defences. “Because there’s no way I’m refusing you.”

They wrestle for the lube and Zayn finds it first with his thighs around Liam’s shoulders, but the flicker of tongue over his balls forces a shock up his spine. He drops the bottle and, an obscene lick later, slick fingers circle his hole.  One slides in easily while Liam’s busy distracting him with soft kisses against his shaft and another joins to curl against his prostate and Zayn _begs_ for more, for a crooked smile pressed against his thigh.

He wriggles backwards and reaches for Liam, rolling on the condom and spilling lube all over his thighs in his eagerness. Zayn sinks onto his cock in one movement, pausing to kiss the smug grin off Liam’s face.

The first rock of his hips is too slow and too cautious, with sighs instead of moans and hands fluttering over Zayn’s ribs. Somewhere in the middle, they grin at each other and lose the goosebumps and find a rhythm that leaves them breathless.

Liam’s hips tilt and _yes_ , that’s the perfect angle, the one where his cock grazes over his prostate in these teasing, slow thrusts. Zayn gasps and flexes his head back and starts riding him in earnest, Liam’s fingers burning into his thighs.

Strong fingers circle tight around his cock at every noise, so his lips are understandably shameless for reward. Moans and stutters of ‘ _Li, please’_ become his language as Liam jerks him off, rocks his hips, breathes words to drive him insane.

Liam whispers ‘ _just like that baby, c’mon, get nice and loud for me’_ and it’s filthy and cheap but the smile on his face is so _sweet_ that Zayn’s orgasm blindsides him, curls somewhere deep in his spine and heats his blood so quickly it hurts.

He’s still shaking when Liam gets restless, squirming and circling his hips and gasping in syllables.

(the needy ‘ _oh’_ and halves of his name are Zayn’s favourite, he thinks)

Automatically, he grasps Liam’s hands and presses them back into the mattress, fingers twining together. His hips roll, just a slow grind onto Liam’s cock in a way that doesn’t allow him any freedom of movement. Liam looks overwhelmed and Zayn’s never seen anyone so beautiful.

“ _Zayn_ ,” he gasps, and _yes_ , that’s definitely his favourite. Liam’s fingers curl against his knuckles like he wants to fight back. “Please – just—”

Zayn laughs and he’s mortified at how _affectionate_ he sounds as he stretches down to bite at his jaw. He clenches around his cock and uses his thighs to kneel up until just the head is rubbing against his hole.

Liam arches off the mattress, straining against Zayn’s grip, and every breath is a moan as he comes hot inside him. There’s no real sensation – aside from the jackhammer movement of Liam’s hips and the slow, needy rocks in the aftermath – and Zayn wishes for the feeling of come and lube leaking out his arse.

It’s midafternoon when they finally separate and Liam takes such good care of him. He tucks him under the sheets and makes him another coffee – ‘ _no milk?’_ he teases, and Liam produces one of those little capsules from hotel rooms like a fucking magician – and feeds him a blueberry muffin between kisses.

 

||

 

Louis survives his very first week of student teaching in early October and Zayn’s running late for drinks at a bar, distracted by a lazy sketch of the skyline and the increasingly sloppy texts from Liam. His favourites include ‘ _baaabbbbyyyy i want to kiss ur stupid face’_ and ‘ _maybs we could fcuk by the speakerss??’_ , both of which he automatically saves for later mockery.

The Dog and Duck is upstairs of some restaurant in the heart of London, characterised by big lounge chairs, shoji screens and floorboard lighting. It reeks of cologne and tastes acidic and would be unbearable if he didn’t receive a lapful of Liam within moments of entering.

“You’re here,” Liam says, sounding so damn affectionate. He’s wearing grey slim-fit trousers and a champagne dress shirt (though that might be stained from alcohol) with most of the buttons undone and the cuffs rolled up to his elbows. He innocently puckers his lips and giggles drunkenly into Zayn’s mouth when he obliges.

He wraps his arms around Liam’s waist and ignores the warm coil of possessiveness when the bartender winks at them. “I promised, didn’t I?” he teases, “in reply to all twenty-seven text messages you sent me.”

Liam looks a little abashed, but still flexes his neck wantonly to expose the collarbone soaked in salt and nudges over a shot.

An eyebrow raises without his permission. “I thought you didn’t drink,” he says as his lips brush over the salt in a kiss. He sticks out his tongue and Liam coats it with tequila, a trail escaping down to his chin.

Smiling lips press to his jaw. “I don’t usually grind, either,” Liam laughs, “so it would appear Louis is a bad influence, because I’m still really into your hips.”

He laughs and obediently follows Liam to the heart of the crowd. In the corner of his eye, he can see Niall and Harry whispering to a leggy blonde by the bar with that one Justin Timberlake song from high school echoing through the open rafters.

There are many things Zayn expects, but Liam pressing his back against his chest and arching to grind against his half-hard cock definitely isn’t one of them. He kisses Zayn lazily between verses and tugs at his v-neck and whispers ‘ _so don’t give away my love’_ against his swollen lips.

And it’s hot, it makes his hands slip from Liam’s tight waist to the very edge of his trousers, but it’s nowhere near as disarming as the sight of pink cheeks and edge of strong shoulders.

The song changes a half dozen times before Zayn realises, and he only notices because of the brilliant smile pressed against his neck. It’s like all the tendons holding this crafted boy together are snapped with chords and a tempo, as the sharp edges of Liam’s spine melt into something malleable and those smile lines around his eyes twist into focus.

He hitches his hips up against Zayn for a moment longer before spinning around and kissing him properly. Liam twines his arms around his neck and dances in that melodic, carefree way Zayn has never quite accomplished and sings along, just under the music. It’s contagious and Zayn’s so damn captivated with the way he giggles, bites Zayn’s lower lip, sings ‘ _hey sugar, show me all your love’_ and smiles so wide when Zayn whispers ‘ _take me to your love shack’_ once he recovers.

They kiss until the song finishes and stumble out the crowd with their lips pressed together.

Louis _literally cockblocks_ them on their way out of the bar, with a palm wriggled between their grinding hips. “ _No_ ,” he says, pouting into Liam’s shoulder with glitter staining his cheekbones. “Niall and Harry have been coercing a gang bang for me all night and I’m not having your dirty drunk sex disrupting my nirvana.”

They share a grin and sloppily kiss Louis’ fluffy hair in perfect unison, and push together from shoulder to thigh when the frigid air hits their flushed cheeks.

 

||

 

They wander around in the darkness for twenty minutes before stumbling into the only restaurant serving at two in the morning – a Mongolian open-grill with no translation in the menu and a group of drunk girls in the opposite corner. Neither of them have ever tried the food, so they steal a menu and a waiter’s pen and circle the dishes which spell out their names.

Zayn’s absolutely horrible with chopsticks, much to Liam’s amusement. His fingers aren’t quite accustomed to the awkward grip and Liam wriggles into the booth beside him, teaches him how to hold and twist and grasp.

“ _So_ ,” Zayn says, prodding at a soup with pork and dumplings, “are you going to explain your affinity for formalwear?”

Liam grins and feeds him a piece of bok choy. “Depends,” he says, “are you ever going to tell me why your fingers are always stained with charcoal?”

A breath catches in his throat and Liam cuts him off before he can reply. “My lecturer is holding a competition,” he explains, cuddling against Zayn’s frame. “The person who dresses well all year gets a guaranteed ninety on the final assessment. And I like looking sharp. _And_ I love the way you stare at me when I wear a suit.”

An hour later, when Zayn’s forgotten all about it, Liam ducks close and whispers, “ _I want to know all your secrets”_ like it’s a promise.

 

||

 

The bed is empty when he wakes up late for class, but Liam’s side is warm and there’s a Styrofoam cup with his name, an anatomically correct heart, and an ‘— _enjoy your coffee black, I require cuddles and a foot rub when I get home, your Liam xx’_ , which makes up for it three times over.

 

||

 

“What are you reading?” Liam asks one night, when they’re curled in bed with the lights on low and a salty blow heater on their bare feet.

“ _Sir Vidia’s Shadow_ ,” he says absently, “a caustic social commentary on betrayal. It’s our theme of the week.”

Liam grins, shoves his phone under his pillow like he always does and peppers kisses at the nape of his neck. “ _Angst_ seems to be your taste,” he teases. Then, softly, like he’s sharing a secret— “we read _Hamlet_ in school and spent all month talking about betrayal. I think I still have my annotated copy.”

“I don’t read Shakespeare,” he says quickly, and it feels like he’s stretching in his armour, “not since—”

“Mercutio in _Romeo and Juliet_ ,” he finishes. He sounds so damn amused and a smile presses to his bare back. “I _do_ listen, sweetheart.”

 

||

 

(He breaks his second rule and steals one of the tattered copies of _Hamlet_ from the university stage production the very next day. At home, between the sheets, with Liam typing up a report on his laptop using two determined fingers, he hides the play behind an abridged edition of _Anna Karenina_ and reads with his feet in Liam’s lap.

His _absolutely excellent_ job at playing stealth is shattered when he yelps at ‘ _than are dreamt of in your philosophy’_ , and Liam looks up and shoots him this fond smile and Zayn can’t be embarrassed when subject to that look.)

 

||

 

That weekend and they’re all stretched across the floor of the lounge room with mountains of textbooks, studying for the exam week from complete hell. Zayn’s editing his essay on contrasts in Russian literature – he prefers Dostoevsky to Tolstoy – and resting his feet in the dip of Louis’ back, stealing glances at Liam when he thinks he can get away with it.

He’s halfway through a paragraph when Liam wriggles close and steals a kiss. “My tombstone will read ‘ _death by projected revenue’_ ,” he sighs as his stubble rasps against Zayn’s neck. “Remind me again why I chose business?”

“An in-between?” he suggests, and receives a playful nip at his jaw in response, “you could always transfer.”

“To what?” he whispers, wrapping an arm around Zayn’s waist, just under his woolly jumper.

Fingers press into the knobs of his spine and he arches into the touch. “Teaching?”

Liam wrinkles his nose. “Boring,” he says, ignoring Louis’ noise of protest, “and it requires more commitment than I could handle on call.”

“Architecture?”

Liam kisses the words off his lips. “Can’t draw.”

“Massage therapy?” he says, soft, into Liam’s mouth, “because fuck knows I love your—”

“No dirty talk during revision,” Harry scowls from his cacoon of blankets and notes on the Monarchy of Spain.

Liam pauses with his tongue brushing against Zayn’s swollen lips and sighs, wriggling comfortably under his free arm. “Let me help you?” he asks, peppering kisses all over.

He tangles their legs together and passes over a red pen. “We’re looking for awkward structuring. Lebensham said it was the only difference between me and Scott Tolksen.”

Liam’s thigh presses a little harder against his own. “Who’s Scott Tolksen?”

“My arch-nemesis,” he says, “the Bane to my Batman.”

Louis grumbles something that sounds a lot like ‘ _you’re my Bane, arsehole,’_ but they ignore him, knocking their feet together playfully while they read through.

He’s halfway through his second paragraph when Liam whispers, “I have no idea what half these words mean, so you’re definitely going to beat Tolksen.”

He raises an eyebrow and preens when he catches sight of a secret smile. “Which don’t you understand?”

“I could tell you the words I _do_ understand,” he teases, tucked up against his body, circling Zayn’s name and every ‘novel’ and ‘author’ in the opening lines, “it might be quicker.”

Liam pauses over an adjective and Zayn gasps in mock horror at his confused expression. “Eccentric?” he says, and Liam looks embarrassed and mischievous and happy all at once, “as in, synonym of unusual?”

There are three matching snorts of laughter from the other side of the rug and Zayn kicks Louis in retaliation. “Only heard that in reference to Tim Burton,” Liam laughs. “How about ‘discernible’?”

He bites back a noise of protest and nips at his jaw, instead. “It means distinct - obvious – as in, it’s _discernible_ your future isn’t in literature.”

Liam wrinkles his nose like he’s processing the insult and bucks up against Zayn when he realises the implications. He’s been wriggling under Zayn for the past fifteen minutes and he can’t stop thinking of a very different situation with less clothes and heavier breaths, just like this, with his limbs caging Liam in.

“Well it’s _discernible_ ,” Liam says slowly, exaggerating his lips and tongue in this obscene way to shape the syllables, grinning filthily, “how much you want to fuck right now.”

There’s a witty retort on the very tip of his tongue but Liam strokes his jaw, whispers ‘ _I can’t wait to take you apart’_ , and he can’t trust himself not to groan if he opens his mouth.

 

||

 

Niall finds him on the emergency stairwell an hour later, ploughing through his pack of Marlboros. They watch each other, for a moment, before Niall grins and slides beside him with his legs dangling over the street and a Sterling between his lips.

A sunset later and he presses forward to light his cigarette on the end of Zayn’s. “Alright?” he asks through a cloud of smoke. “You look spooked.”  
He shrugs and flicks ash over the rail. Niall doesn’t push – which is maybe his favourite thing about him – just sits and smokes and slumps against the railing. When he’s ready, he asks, “do you ever look up and realise you’re gone for someone?”

Niall grins and tangles calloused fingers in his messy hair. “Yeah,” he says, all helpless and hopeful, “terrifying, isn’t it?”

 

||

 

It’s the week of Halloween and Zayn’s not quite certain how the five of them stumbled upon his choice tattoo studio, but he’s pretty sure it involved the promise of pizza and walking the long way to avoid cleaning the apartment. They’re browsing through the wall of art and he’s whispering to Harry about starting his left sleeve when Liam curls an arm around his waist.

“I’ve wanted a tattoo for forever,” he says, soft, like a secret. Lips fumble over his pulse and Zayn wants a kiss, a touch, the sight of ink – something so _his_ – on Liam’s skin.

Somehow – not somehow, _Louis_ - _how_ , as he will take credit for years to come – ‘I’ is taken as a collective ‘we’ and they end up in a neat row of leather chairs, a needle to the skin and an ‘ _animal, boys, it’s going to be majestically symbolic’_ in mind.

With a sleeve rolled all the way to his shoulders and his spare hand laced tight in Liam’s, he explains the surrealist macaw he wants on his tricep, influenced by Van Gogh’s _Starry Night,_ to his artist – this guy with untainted skin and agile fingers. In a softer voice, he explains that it’s not about him, really, it’s about the boy with a big smile and a laugh like May, who redefines _vibrancy_ with every breath.

He watches it knit together, making these appreciative noises when the artist wipes away the ink to show him what’s there.

Liam’s secretive, twisting away and laughing whenever Zayn tries to look. Hours later, while Niall’s busy explaining the polar bear on his thigh, Liam pulls him aside, shoves up his sleeves, showing him the kingfisher bird staining his forearm.

He’s lost on what to say when Liam sees his macaw and—

_Oh._

Liam kisses him in this way that makes Zayn feel devoured, his fingers dawdling over the details like he’s memorising the foreign skin.

Louis is manic with glee as he says ‘ _if you’re a bird, I’m a bird’_ like he didn’t make them watch ‘The Notebook’ three times last weekend, but that doesn’t matter when Liam’s pressing his lips to the cling-wrap to kiss it better.

 

||

 

The sun is streaming through an open window on a Wednesday in the middle of November. Zayn’s reading the latest issue of _Batwing_ and sketching all over his draft essay on _Jane Eyre,_ and maybe this is where he feels most comfortable, surrounded by all his favourite things.

(literature and comic books and coffee and sunshine)

(and Liam)

He feels Liam before he sees him, a taut stretch of muscle pressed against his back as a hand sneaks under his shirt and another adds milk to his espresso shot on the floor. The noise of discontent that escapes his lips is lost when Liam bites his neck.

Zayn’s breathing heavy by the time they kiss properly and he loses himself in the fingers buried in his hair, hips grinding him into the mattress, the smiles between kisses.

Liam stills against him and laughs softly into his mouth at Zayn’s noise of protest, pulling away to tongue at his neck. “Is there a chance you drew that?” he asks, fingering at the page, and Zayn loses all his dignity in a heartbeat. He twists and wrestles and fights dirty for the drawing, sneaking kisses and tangling their legs together and marking him up the way Liam loves best.

When they pause, he’s straddling Liam’s hips with his glasses askew and jeans shoved down to his crotch. Liam’s cock is hard against the back of his thighs and the sketch is in his hands and when Zayn holds him down, his hips pulse.

“This is incredible,” Liam says, almost like a prayer, and kisses him hard, “you’re so fucking sexy like this.”

He bites Liam’s lower lip and tightens his grip in response and uses too much lube, later, in eagerness, when he holds Liam down and rides him in slow rocks of his hips which have them both writhing.

 

||

 

Afterwards, when Zayn’s milky coffee has gone cold and they’ve taken to kissing words in Morse code against each other’s lips, Liam asks, “so drawing, hey?”

Zayn blushes and squirms against his sweaty chest. “Kind of.”

The next string of kisses along Zayn’s collarbones feel a lot like an S.O.S. “You never told me. What’s the story, morning glory?”

“No story, really,” he says, quiet, into the hollow of his neck, “I’m doing a double degree. The graphic design term is over the summer.”

Liam hums a chorus by Oasis – _don’t look back in anger_ , Zayn thinks – and tightens his grip around his shoulder. “So damn talented,” he laughs, sounding a little awed, “you’re so wasted on me, Zayn Malik.”

Something sweet curls around his spine as they press their lips together. It’s boiling him from the inside out, and Zayn’s grinding into his hip and moaning into his chest when Liam whispers ‘ _draw me like one of your French girls’_ in this silly falsetto designed to ruin the mood and break his heart.

 

||

 

(“What’s with the coffee ?” he asks that night at dinner, with Niall perched on the counter and Louis between his thighs, tanned fingers sliding up pale legs when he thinks they won’t notice. “The milk, I mean.”

Liam’s unfathomable in that moment, this blur of embarrassment and affection and a hint Zayn can’t name yet. “Maybe I’ll tell you, one day,” he laughs, with this shy smile that warms his cheeks. Then, to distract him, “if you two are getting off, please wait for Harry to get home or he’ll sulk all weekend.”)

 

||

 

In retrospect, Zayn should have expected this. He feels too happy walking through the campus with Liam holding his hand, too much like himself, so it’s fucking obvious that it’s this moment (with visible breaths and dew under their feet and a smile like sunshine on Liam’s lips) when it all shatters.

“Zayn Malik!” he hears, and Indi, this girl with big lips and bigger hair and who finds every opportunity in tutorials to talk about Shakespearean sonnets, stumbles out of the tech centre. “Who is this and should I bother learning his name?”

He glances at Liam with a ‘ _this is’_ on his tongue and realises how absolutely inadequate all the adjectives formed with tongue and teeth are, where _la petit mort_ no longer feels like a reference to sex but to the way his heart skips at the sound of Liam’s voice.

“It’s just Liam,” he says, thinking of that one Spanish author who wrote that a lack of definition is the sincerest form of identity, and at that raw hour of the morning he can’t help but think that maybe ( _just maybe_ ) Liam is too pure to be attached to his reputation.

(the studiously blank look on Liam’s face suggests it’s all lost in translation, though)

The conversation ends rather abruptly and Indi walks away first, leaving Liam and Zayn and the galaxies between them.

Liam uses his long legs to his advantage to walk away and something in Zayn just _collapses_. “I think I’m going to go study,” he says as he jogs across the frosty lawn, so far away for maybe the first time.

Zayn follows and can’t help but think that maybe the whole world is right about him and his calloused touch and hard eyes and harsh words. The thought leaves him trembling and so damn defenceless when he asks, “Weren’t we going to that gallery, the one on surrealism, before lunch?”

There’s a long moment, loaded with ‘ _not anymore’_ and _‘not ever again’_ and _‘fuck you, Zayn Malik’_ , but all of that goes unsaid. “I don’t want to be with you, right now,” Liam says, and the sunshine and clear sky and macaw staining his skin feel like a taunt. “It would really be best if—”

Zayn swallows the bile at the very back of his throat and reaches for his wrist. “Can we talk about this?” he asks, too calm, and he’s desperate for an ‘ _I understand’_ or even just an _‘only if you want to’_. “God _—_ ”

_“No_ ,” Liam shouts, spinning around and letting Zayn see his flushed cheeks, bitten raw lower lip, wide eyes that say _you took what was ours and you made it theirs_. “It’s ‘ _just Liam’_ , remember?”

And he _deflates_ in front of Zayn, just out of his reach, and walks into the library before he can fight back.

 

||

 

(Liam crawls into bed at half three and Zayn cuddles up, wriggling into his arms before he can protest or roll away or whisper ‘ _not tonight, Zayn’_.

“Li,” he mumbles and fingers stutter over his shoulders. “I’m really sorry.”

Then, when he’s feeling braver— “We’re going to get back to where we were. I just want you to know that.”

And it’s a little easier to breathe as Liam presses a kiss to his forehead breathes out a ‘ _yeah’_ into the blanket.)

 

||

 

It’s _different_ , afterwards. Liam doesn’t touch him any less or sleep in another room, but he’s a little rougher with him, shoves _back_ , thumbs absently at the kingfisher’s wings when he thinks Zayn isn’t watching.

He tries to fix it – kisses him harder in the mornings, whispers apologies into his skin every night, fills the in-between with all the things Liam loves best – but Christmas break comes too soon and he’s shoved onto a train with half a promise on his lips and the memory of Liam’s too-dark eyes.

There are two hours and a hundred and ninety kilometres between them and it’s harder, with the distance, to remember the way Liam’s laughter crumbles into a groan when Zayn bites at his hips.

He lasts until just after midnight on Christmas day, when he squirms all the way off his childhood single and speed dials Liam’s number without a moment’s hesitation.

“Hi,” he breathes, before Liam can say anything at all. His spare hand curls in the blankets. “I miss you to death.”

“Hey,” Liam says, sounding sleepy and vulnerable and so damn happy to hear his voice. “Merry Christmas.”

They shove on Love Actually and do a _When Harry Met Sally_ – “When who met who?” Liam asks, and Zayn can picture his confused frown and wrinkled nose – and only talk every few scenes in soft whispers so their parents don’t hear. The familiarity of this, of Liam’s drowsy commentary and ‘ _still with me, Malik?_ ’, as they have a dozen times before, presses words that tastes like a _you, Liam, all I want for Christmas is you_ against his tongue.

Zayn wakes up to the sound of Liam yawning in one ear and the noise of his sisters thumping on the door in the other and can’t help but feel so, so at home.

 

||

 

(a few hours later, a bouquet of chocolate roses and a note dated three days ago arrive at the door and he thinks, yeah, love actually _is_ all around)

 

||

 

He comes home on New Year’s Eve and doesn’t hesitate – _can’t_ , not when Liam’s in that loose Pink Floyd shirt he wears to bed and tight acid wash jeans with Zayn’s paint all over the knees – to cross the room and flutter kisses over his cheekbones. Zayn grins into his birthmark and passes over that notebook overflowing with words, the one calling Liam things like ‘ _beautiful’_ and ‘ _his utopia’_.

Liam reads with his fingers trailing after his eyes, like he wants to memorise the touch of the words as well. There are likely metaphors he doesn’t understand, or more adjectives he’ll accuse Zayn of inventing, but when he looks up there are stars in his eyes.

They’re sharing lazy kisses in their squashy armchair when Harry walks into sight, wearing jeans from _Forever 21_ and an indecently low v-neck. “You’re not dressed,” he whines, and Zayn whispers ‘ _you’re wearing too many clothes, Li’_ into the shell of his ear. “Aiden’s shouting drinks for the next hour.”  
Liam pauses. “Grimshaw or Spencer?”

“Spencer, but Grimshaw’s going to be there.”

He squirms away (squirms _down_ , more like, the bastard) and flashes a sweet smile at a very unimpressed Harry. “Then we’re going to stay in,” he says, “maybe catch Dr No. and order Chinese.”

(“ _Mongolian_ ,” Zayn corrects, hot into his neck, just for the way Liam laughs into his hair)

“Is it because of November?” Louis yells, “because Aiden _swears_ he didn’t know you two were together.”

“He knew,” Liam mumbles, tongue flickering over the tendons in his neck, “you were all fucked out that day and I held your hand and fed you food while your hands were full. He knew.”

The bathroom door swings open and Niall walks through, but they’re too busy sneaking fingers under waistbands to notice. “They want to stay home and get off,” he teases and, yeah, that’s it.

Louis snorts, flashes them an affectionate look, and adds— “that doesn’t make them any less of a _married couple_.”

 

||

 

There are few things more sacred in this world than the feel of Liam’s bare skin against his own, and Zayn’s still searching for the words to adequately describe the way they fit together.

He’s testing ‘ _incredible’_ on his tongue while Liam’s distracted by the phone call – the Italian restaurant on the corner is the only place that delivers on public holidays, and they’ve spent the past hour bickering over pasta – and wriggles underneath the thick afghan to smear kisses all over his chest.

Liam chokes out a groan when Zayn ghosts over his erection and his fingers move to tangle in his hair, but twine around his wrist, instead. “Keep talking,” Zayn whispers, lips catching on the head of his cock, “we want tortellini instead of penne, remember?”

Liam’s grip on the phone wavers and he looks so unsure, with bright eyes and pink lips, but he nods and only stutters once when Zayn swallows around his head.

Zayn pins his squirming hips to the leather and revels in the way Liam goes boneless as he licks up the shaft, sloppy and loud, moaning against his cock until Liam’s talking in syllables instead of words.

Control always gets Liam hot but Zayn wants to drive him _wild_ so he slacks his lips, loosens his tongue, and does everything he doesn’t expect, until he’s chanting ‘ _yes yes_ yes’ in reply to everything he’s asked and trembling all over.

Zayn’s getting desperate, now, like it’s something contagious he catches off Liam’s skin. He fights dirty and swallows him down, moans on the way up, slides his fingers between Liam’s cock and his tongue to toy with his foreskin. As a last resort – when Liam’s flushed and stuttering out a ‘ _don’t come don’t come, don’t come fuck please don’t come too soon’_ – he swirls his slick finger over the inside of Liam’s thighs, glancing over his hole, simultaneously sucking down and pressing in until his first knuckle is engulfed in that sickle-sweet heat—

Liam freezes all over. Unconsciously, it seems ( _feels_ , really, when his cock throbs against his lips), he breathes out a ‘ _yes’_ and pulses into his mouth.

All it takes is Liam’s tongue chasing the taste off his lips and fingers wrapped loose around his cock for Zayn to follow suit, coming just as Liam whispers into his mouth.

 

||

 

(‘ _so fucking sexy, darling, I will never get sick of your stupid gorgeous face, the way your lips go all pink, the scratch marks all down my spine, and la petit mort, right, that’s what you wrote about, you are my petit mort and I will adore every second of the afterlife_ _if it’s with you’_ )

 

||

 

Liam only blushes a little when he answers the door and Zayn rewards him with that ridiculous annual countdown he loves so much and a dozen lit candles and mouthfuls of trashy white wine between songs and kisses.

 

||

 

It’s early morning and grey out when Zayn wakes up in the new year, to Liam against his chest, no less. He groans out a ‘ _Li_ ’ and wraps an arm around his shoulders but keeps his eyes closed, crafting an image of him ( _wet, grinning, hot all over_ ) with his hands instead.

“Morning,” Liam whispers, squirming close to press a kiss to his lips. He tastes like spearmint and smells like the vanilla soap they both use and it wakes him up, forces him to kiss back.

When Zayn flips them over to grind their hips together, Liam makes this helpless noise and adds, “Can you maybe fuck me now?”

He rolls onto his stomach and deliberately spreads his legs, pink cheek pressed to the pillow to watch as Zayn _stares_. Liam’s eyes are bright and glassy and his lips are swollen like he’s been biting back moans and there are fingerprints of lube all over his hips and he looks like a _wreck_ , before Zayn’s even touched him.

Zayn catches his eye, waits for the slight nod, and eases him back into a kiss as he searches blindly for the lube and condoms on the dresser. With slick fingers, he grazes over the rim and moans a scandalised ‘ _oh, sweetheart’_ under his breath when he feels his stretched hole.

“Hey,” Liam mumbles, like he’s embarrassed, and that’s the absolute last thing Zayn wants him to feel when he tastes so vulnerable. He pulls his fingers away and Liam whines, nudges shamelessly back into the touch until he’s certain Zayn won’t move again. “Maybe we could go bare, too?”

His finger corkscrews inside on its own accord because Liam’s ‘ _hey I just met you / and this is crazy / but here’s my doctor / so get tested maybe?’_ from before break suddenly makes a world of sense, like he’s been planning Zayn’s descent into insanity for _weeks_ now.

Liam settles against the mattress and the rising sun illuminates all the contours of his flexing spine and Zayn thinks, not for the first time, that Liam’s absolutely too perfect for this world.

The head of his cock catches on Liam’s hole and fingers twine in his hair, tugging him sideways for a kiss. “Be gentle with me,” Liam breathes against his lips, and Zayn’s never really been one for egotism, but the sound of his words in Liam’s voice while he’s eager and desperate beneath him is—

_fuck_

The first thrust in is too slow and feels a little like heaven. Liam whimpers against his lips, laughs out a ‘ _wow_ ’ and starts grinding back cautiously. It has Zayn flustered and more reverent than he’s willing to admit, pressing fingertip bruises into his ribs and chasing Liam’s moans with his tongue with his thighs bracketing Liam’s hips in a way that makes thrusting redundant but feels the most protective, the most deserving of _Liam_.

_Slow_ is evidently not enough, because it’s barely a heartbeat later and Liam’s whining, whispering a litany of words that make Zayn’s eyes roll back. He twines his fingers with Liam’s and smears kisses all over his broad shoulders while the kingfisher shines in the morning light. His hips snap forward too fast and there’s too much lube and their kisses are sloppy but it’s perfect, overwhelming, something Zayn never thought he could have.

Liam comes untouched with half of Zayn’s name on his lips, sounding so happy and so desperate and so _his_. Zayn’s hands automatically roam down his ribs, over his stained chest, wriggling backwards to glance over where his rim tightens sporadically around him.

“ _Zayn_ ,” Liam moans, grinding backwards and tangling come-stained fingers in his hair, voice desperate and soft, and that’s nearly enough in itself to get him off. “Come on, come for me, come _inside_ me, please, I want you, I want you so bad, I want you all over, I want—”

He comes so hard he blacks out, and blinks back to Liam kissing his neck with a smug grin. Zayn’s hips rotate right against his prostate until the smile gives way to whines and stutters and ‘ _if you don’t stop I’m going to need another round’_.

Carefully, he pulls out and cleans up the worst of the lube, sweat and come with the washcloth Liam left on the corner table and wraps around his trembling, pliant body, determined to keep him warm in this too cold room.

 

||

 

The next morning and Liam looks vulnerable, with bed hair and a breathy voice and wide eyes that study Zayn’s like he’s never seen him before. They kiss lazily until Zayn succumbs to the ache in his chest and escapes to the kitchen. He fries up bacon and eggs (greasy and scrambled, the way Liam loves best) and grabs _Arkham Asylum #4_ from the spare bedroom and a big bottle of cold water, wondering when the _fuck_ he started being included among Liam’s favourite things.

(he doesn’t mind, can’t even pretend to be nonchalant, instead grabbing all of _Batman: Year One_ so they won’t need to get dressed for hours yet)

When he hip-checks through their bedroom door, Liam pokes out of the burrow of blankets and absolutely _beams_ at him, like maybe this is a first for him, too, and Zayn furiously stamps down the shameless stutter in his breath.

 

||

 

It’s a week into semester and they’re still insatiable, jerking each other off between lessons, fucking in their morning shower, falling asleep with come streaking their chests. They’re snogging in bed and Zayn’s learning how to be shameless, grinding against his hip in response to Liam’s filthy mouth when—

“ _Liam!”_ Harry yelps and storms into their bedroom with Niall and Louis and a laptop. Zayn scatters playful kisses all over his neck, desperate to return to _want you to fuck me, Zayn, I want your cock and I want your come_ but stops when Liam’s hand grips his too hard under the covers.

Big brown eyes meet his and sour nerves churn in his stomach. “The first question,” Liam says, and lips swear it will all be okay, “should be why you three were watching porn together in the first place.”

 

||

 

“It’s just for Mace,” Liam explains, while the others sprawl all over him and shove the laptop at Zayn. The screen is frozen fifteen minutes in on him and another boy (who’s all torso and stubble and a dirty smile) grinding against the wall and he _can’t_ stop staring at the hand fisted in the knot of unfamiliar, messy curls on Liam’s head. “He couldn’t afford a med degree, so—”

Niall raises an eyebrow and Louis makes an obscene hand gesture behind him. “So you went gay for pay?”

“ _No_ ,” Liam says, and he’s rhythmically squeezing Zayn’s fingers under the blankets like he wants to code the words into his blood. “The studio doesn’t really stand for that – we actually—”

_Used to fuck_ , Zayn thinks, if the blush high in his cheeks is anything to judge by, and wonders not for the first time if Liam’s ever had something real. He smiles at the worried crease in Liam’s forehead and holds his hand tight while the boys rib on his oh-face, even when they graduate to increasingly crude questions about their sex life.

(even when Liam doesn’t quite meet his eye on some of the answers)

 

||

 

Liam crawls into bed that night in a pair of sweatpants and automatically bends around Zayn’s aching body. “Please don’t watch it,” he whispers into the nape of his neck. “It’s irrelevant. And I can’t even say that without thinking how proud you’d be that I can use ‘irrelevant’ in context. There’s a you now. There’s a you and me now.”

And hours later, when he thinks Zayn’s asleep, he adds— “please still be here in the morning.”

 

||

 

(he watches the video.

It’s not the way they fuck or the noises Liam makes or even the way they _fit_ together. No, it’s the in-between – the cheeky kisses that turn desperate, the familiarity of Mason’s hands on his chest, the look in Liam’s eyes and the ‘ _you’re so fucking sexy’_ on his lips - which twist around his lungs like smoke on a cold morning.

But he also waits for Liam to wake up before climbing into the shower, just for the relieved smile pressed to the crook of his spine)

 

||

 

It’s a little awkward the morning but Liam surprises him that afternoon, walks into his class and plants a coffee on the table and a hard kiss to his lips, and the world tilts back into perspective.

And, sure, there are doubt fuelled comparisons and some frankly abhorrent teasing (his least favourite being Louis’ hollers of ‘ _choke on that cock, Spike Townsend’_ while they’re sucking each other off), but there’s also this new honesty when Liam talks about Wolverhampton, these casual touches in public which threaten to burn him out, and the reassurance that at least what they have is _different_.

So when Friday comes and Liam looks almost hesitant, in sweats and downcast eyes and hunched shoulders, Zayn just smiles his best and kisses the curve of his shoulder. “Drink for every time a superhero says ‘justice’?” he suggests, knocking over the stack of movies by their feet in his haste to suck at the tendons in his neck.

Liam twists his head to bite his shoulder and adds, “maybe a kiss for every mention of revenge?” and later during _Superman_ they find any excuse to call out the villain and press their lips together.

 

||

 

“Hey,” Liam whispers, shy, into his chest, as the end credits of _X-Men First Class_ roll over the screen. “You awake?”

Zayn’s heart aches at the vulnerable hilt in his voice and he’s not certain Liam wants him to hear, so he hums sleepily, tightens the arm curled around Liam’s waist.

“New year’s day,” he says, and Zayn thinks of _be gentle with me_ when lips catch on his collarbone tattoo. “That was a first, for me.”

He waits until Liam’s heartbeat slows against his own and presses a kiss to the crown of his head and promises ‘ _you’re a first, for me’_ when Liam’s honest eyes catch his in the darkness.

 

||

 

Liam makes him shout (and scream, and beg, and gasp, and maybe cry a little from the combination of the four) sometime in February, with his tongue circling his hole for the very first time and a finger flirting with his prostate and absolutely no attention to his erection, even when he whines ‘ _I’ll make it so good I’ll take you apart and put you back together with my cock if you just touch me_ ’.

He comes with filth on his lips, arching off the bed with a shout that will warrant some teasing when they leave this haven of a room. His skin feels electric and he thinks he could maybe come again from the way Liam’s moaning breathless into his inner thigh, still dressed in a suit with the buttons undone to his chest and cuffs shoved up to his elbows.

Zayn just wants to _ruin_ him so he scratches at his exposed shoulders, curls his toes against Liam’s thighs. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you,” he says, voice still husky, a little thrilled at the helpless look in Liam’s eyes. “Riding me, with my hands on your hips, so you can pretend you’re in charge and know you’re not? Or maybe with you all tied up and forced to just _relax_ , baby, you don’t need a perfect record and cufflinks to impress me when I’m gone for you already. Look at you, so made for me, Liam, you’re so made for my cock—”

Kisses are scattered over the soft skin behind his knee but Zayn doesn’t think it’s cognizant, if the bright, disbelieving focus of Liam’s eyes are anything to judge by. He looks a little in awe but Zayn wants him _wrecked_ , wrecked in the cheeks and wrecked for other boys, so he adds—

“Or I could take you out, somewhere in the city, and steal us a bathroom in some busy as fuck restaurant, just enough privacy to keep you to myself but so, so little that people blush when we leave, and you would sit there all night with my come inside you, love bites all over your neck, your stupid oxford buttoned wrong. Or maybe we wouldn’t last that long, and I would tug you into my lap on the tube and you’d beg for it in time with the track movements, with all those people watching, thinking of how _desperate_ you must be for me—”

Liam comes with wide eyes and a ‘ _jesus_ christ _Zayn’,_ lurching up to kiss him like it’s the only thing he wants. “Yeah,” he breathes, and Zayn wants to spend the rest of the day deciphering what he’s referring to.

He drags himself out of bed and to the library twenty minutes later, but French liberalism is the last thing on his mind. His thoughts keep straying to ‘ _yeah’_ and _‘can you maybe fuck me now?’_ and ‘ _I’m going to get you loud’_. By the time he finishes the essay, it’s dark out and he’s hard and wanting and on the right side of desperate for Liam and his pretty mouth.

Zayn sees him a moment too late, one foot in the door and his mind in the gutter when he recognises the lazy smile and blue eyes and tight muscles along his shoulders. An ache rides down his spine and he automatically mutates into that facade when Mason rights himself and smiles at him.

Footsteps echo down the hall and Liam appears in the doorway, grinning once he sees Zayn. “Hey you,” he says, soft and happy and so _sure_. “Mace, this is—”

“Just Zayn,” Mason finishes, a little mocking, like he’s _pleased_ he’s witnessing this. “Gathered. Pleasure.”

Zayn just raises an eyebrow and says ‘ _all mine’_ under his breath, forcing disinterest into all his cells when what he _really_ wants is to pry him apart, ask him a dozen questions starting with ‘ _how serious were you two?’_ and ending with ‘ _have you fucked since I’ve been sleeping in his bed?_ ’

They talk over tea and biscuits but Zayn doesn’t quite hear anything, too busy staring at Mason’s arm tight around Liam’s shoulders with fingers catching on the love bite he left just hours ago.

“Really,” he’s saying, more to Liam than Zayn, “I deserve an Order of the British Empire for saving Lee—”

(which is maybe his sixth least favourite thing about Mason, where first is the fact that he had Liam before him, third is the peak of flawless muscles under his shirt, fifth is his eight hundred inside jokes about their sex life and the porn industry, and sixth is that he calls him ‘ _Lee’_ when it is clearly ‘ _Li’_ )

“—he was one ripped t-shirt from an eternity of repressed homosexuality and douchebaggery.”

Zayn makes a bored little hum which he hopes summarises ‘ _Liam is capable of making his own decisions, see, he chose me’_ in the same, detached manner he uses in class, and Liam smiles like he sees right through all his bullshit.

“I was _not_ that bad,” he grumbles, holding Zayn’s eye for a moment too long before prodding feebly at Mason’s ribs. “ _Please_ leave before you ruin my good reputation.”

Mason slides off the couch and grins at Zayn, curiosity sharpening his eyes. He’s halfway to the door and the chill in the room is already seeping through the cracks in the floorboards when he turns around and asks, “hey, forgot, did you want the car to pick you up this weekend?”

Liam freezes. “What are we doing this weekend?”

“Filming,” Mason says, carefully, watching Zayn instead. “Remember, Christmas break, your backyard swing, leaning on the bottle of whisky to sign the contract for the third scene?”

( _as in two already, as in another video Harry didn’t find, another twenty-five minutes of them fucking for the world to see_ )

Blushing, Liam twists towards Zayn. “We’re—” he says, leaving a deliberate pause for another definition.

Zayn feels sick, like he’s upside down and half off a cliff and all alone and he doesn’t know what to _say_ , he doesn’t know how to word ‘ _hey no I thought we were over this I thought you were all mine I thought I didn’t need to say a thing’_ in front of Liam’s carbon copy with a nice cock and a vivacious laugh. Instead, he just swallows thickly and says, “not a big deal, right?”

Liam just stares at him and Zayn knows, he knows this is when he’s supposed to kiss him silly and say no and pull a promise ring out of absolute nowhere. Now

now

_now_.

“Get the car to pick me up Sunday, then,” he says, gentle, and slams the bathroom door behind him once he leaves.

 

||

 

(big deal, right, he realises three hours later, when he can’t stop thinking about Mason’s strong hands all over Liam, but he doesn’t shake him awake, just pinches the macaw until it turns the skin underneath an ugly red and he stops feeling the urge to cry)

 

||

 

He scribbles out a note ( _Tonight – Z x)_ and sneaks out just after dawn while Liam’s curled in on himself, just so he won’t need to wake up to an empty bed. The day passes with this consistent vice wrapped around all his essential organs and even his favourite places in the city – Bookmarks in the morning, Hyde Park for the afternoon, Lazarides before dinner – aren’t enough to distract from the thought of Liam all over another guy.

Admittedly, he’s half-insane by sunset. Liam cocks an eyebrow and says ‘ _ready for this?’_ like he’s a challenge or a prize or maybe both, and Zayn shoves him onto his stomach, uses too little lube and takes what he needs and leaves what he wants. Hickeys and scratch marks and bruises stain all those intimate places he loves best—

( _the nape of his neck, the inside of his thighs, the curve of his wrist where the kingfisher’s beak touches bone_ )

—  and he can’t help but feel a little ill, when he realises he’s resulted to animalistic possessiveness as his primary method of telling the world that Liam’s his.

 

||

 

(Stretched out afterwards, in the dark and sharing desperate kisses, Zayn succumbs to his rabbit heartbeat and whispers, “why do you add milk?”

It’s not the right thing to say, if the sick, acrid taste of guilt is anything to judge by. Liam doesn’t speak, just tightens an arm around his shoulders and kisses him. It leaves him breathless and desperate and heavy with something disarming—

_like love,_ he thinks, though he’ll never admit it

— that feels like an answer.)

 

||

 

_Arrogance_ studios film in an apartment off Hyde Park. It’s airy and minimalist and Zayn would absolutely adore it if he hadn’t seen Mason deepthroating Liam on the sofa, laughing ‘ _giddy up pony boy’_ with his back arched over the kitchen table, even just slouched in the doorway with that stupid smirk on his face.

“You brought Zayn,” he says, pressing ( _just a fraction_ ) into Liam’s space until Zayn can see the freckles sprinkled over his cheeks. “Is that a suggestion?”

“No threeways!” a man yells from across the room, “your wholesome we-only-fuck-each-other trilogy only lasts another four hours, and then you can engage in all the sordid activities you love best.”

Mason wriggles fingers under Liam’s waistband and Zayn slaps them away. “I don’t know, Henry,” he laughs, “some of the things we’re about to do are pretty obscene. Ready to start, Lee? I bet I can get you hard before we even strip off.”

Scowling, Zayn tugs Liam close by his shirt. In another world, likely one where he didn’t feel so defenceless, he would bite his neck, outline his cock, get him hard and needy, just for Zayn. Instead, he wraps his fingers around Liam’s bruised wrist, kisses the flinch off his cheeks.

Liam looks torn and so unfamiliar, and comes close in front of a room of production workers. “Louis will be here soon,” he says, into his hair, sounding incredibly wide open. “A kiss for good luck?”

Zayn complies, just slow enough to make Liam whine against his lips, and mumbles ‘ _I’m sorry’_ into his mouth.

Teeth bite into his lip, just once, and Liam’s fingers fist in his hair. “Hey,” he whispers, between kisses. “Remember that first day, with the furniture?”  
Zayn makes this helpless noise he hopes summarises _easy smile, bare forearms, ‘you pull it off’_ in a breath.

“You probably didn’t think anything of it,” Liam continues, sounding mortified and affectionate and so, so nervous, “but when I was fixing tea afterwards, you said you were absolutely unaffected by everything but black coffee. I always add milk because I want to be what affects you. And I like being the only one to get your heart racing. And I sort of love getting to calm you down, too.”

With one last kiss, before Zayn can reply, he crawls onto the bed and settles in the crook of Mason’s arm, turning towards the camera with an easy smile.

Zayn doesn’t listen to the obligatory foreplay conversation, only catches—

( _“that’s new,” Mason says, tracing the kingfisher’s wings as Liam’s eyes involuntarily meet his across the bright room_ )

and

( _Liam’s fingers catching on muscle groups Zayn didn’t know existed, flirting about how he’s going to ‘fuck you into shape, Mace, your gluts should be dedicated to me’_ )

and

( _“I blew Liam under one of the desks at our high school,” he says, struggling to unbutton Liam’s skin-tight jeans with his mouth pressed to his crotch, “so he’s solely responsible for my steady decline into exhibitionism”_ )

between the white noise.

There are things Zayn can take and others he can’t, and while listening to Liam moan around a cock is bearable, he refuses to actually _watch_. Instead, he wedges himself between a row of screens and behind a cameraman and watches a lanky guy edit old footage.

He’s captivated by the sight of a younger Liam (no tattoo, all-American haircut, wearing plaid like he’s still a little unsure of his own body) doing sit-ups with Mason rewarding him with a kiss after every rep when the editor turns to flash him a smile. “You’re the boyfriend, right?” he says, and Zayn’s a little helpless at how much he enjoys the definition.

He nods and the editor passes him a set of headphones. On screen, they’re rolling around in bed and trading hot kisses and groaning like pulling away is the worst thing in the world whenever the cameraman asks them a question.

“Legal,” Liam answers, cheeky, with hair in his face and lips sucking at his neck.

Mason glances up at him, then, and Zayn’s so struck with how similar they look ( _what, with the muscles and the smiles and the misplaced innocence_ ). “Barely,” he adds, “and we definitely weren’t that one time in sixth form in the stairwell—”

The next kiss catches him by surprise and he makes an indignant noise like he wants to keep talking but loses himself in Liam’s lips, instead.

The scene changes to the two of them in the shower, lathering each other up and trading cheesy pick up lines and rewarding strokes whenever one earns a laugh, and Zayn needs to look away at ‘ _you’re the only ten-I-see_ ’.

Again and they’re blowing each other while everyone’s on break, another and they’re shoving themselves apart so they don’t come too soon, and then they’re on the couch as they talk about sex and ‘ _Mace, your hole is so sensitive, I bet you could come from being rimmed alone’_ and ‘ _that sounds like an offer’._

He glances up from the screen and Liam has him spread across the bed, a hand fisted in his hair and the other wrenching his thighs apart. His hips roll just a little too short ( _like Zayn would, like Zayn_ did _, only a few days ago in the morning light_ ) and Mason writhes, arches, laughs _‘get the fuck off my prostate_ ’, and Zayn’s entranced by this other side of Liam who shoves _back_ , and he _can’t_ —

 

||

 

(can’t stay quiet or sit still or pretend he doesn’t care that Liam’s sharing all their secrets with the rest of the world)  

 

||

 

Louis finds him a cigarette later in one of the spare bedrooms with the window propped open to remove the dry smell of smoke and sex from the air. He’s absolutely nothing like Niall was that day in the fire escape, all calm and understanding and blonde hair and easy camaraderie. Instead, he climbs into Zayn’s lap and says, “wonder how many guys have sweated over this futon?”

“ _Lou_ ,” he scowls, blushing into his neck, and he’s certain it’s a distraction tactic because a moment later he adds, “there are two great tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”

He’s silent, for a moment, and then he snorts. “That’s from One Tree Hill.”

“Actually, it’s _George Bernard Shaw—”_

“Also it’s total bullshit,” he says, before Zayn can really discuss the merits of Irish dramatism. “Is your least favourite part of the day waking up beside him? Are your stupid bird tattoos the ugliest thing you’ve ever inked into your skin? Is having a boy that gone for you _really_ the worst thing to ever happen to you?”

The memory of Liam leaning over his essay, lips catching over ‘ _discernible’_ , clears his lungs better than the nicotine. “He’s not really gone for me anymore, though.”

Louis sighs in that awfully put-upon way. “I drove to Wolverhampton during Christmas break because of your inability to talk about your feelings outside of pretentious prose,” he says, quiet in the acoustic-heavy room, “and Liam had more alcohol in his blood than oxygen, and kept saying ‘ _I’m his just, but I’m still just his’_. You’ve spent the past two days moping and this is getting ridiculous because you’re _actually_ a Beatles song. And none of that _I want to hold your hand_ , bullshit, I’m talking _when I’m sixty-four_ sugar-coated kisses, joint custody over a puppy and a silver wedding anniversary before you’re forty.”

He can’t quite stop thinking of Liam for another twenty-five years, just like this, so he nearly misses when Louis shoots him a triumphant smile and adds—

“Now, go on. Go get your damn tragedy, you shameless post-modernist stereotype.”

 

||

 

He hovers in the doorway and watches as Liam licks the come off Mason’s chest and presses it between his lips with his tongue. They kiss a little longer than necessary and whisper things no one else is supposed to hear as the camera pans over their chests pressed together, Mason’s arms slotted around his neck, the lazy tangle of his legs around Liam’s waist.

When they separate, someone holding a mic wolf-whistles and Liam fumbles a sheet around his waist to cover the flush of his chest. He meets Zayn’s eyes across the crowded room and leads him wordlessly into the second bathroom, the one without the studio lights, and strips Zayn off with that economic precision he usually reserves for himself.

The water is still cold when they slip under the rainfall showerhead. Goosebumps spread across Liam’s shoulders and Zayn focuses there, kisses the nape of his neck while hands scrape all the lube and sweat off his chest.

“That first day,” Liam says, a little broken, “in the hall, you— you thought you had everyone fooled. You wore those stupid boots and talked about Hemingway over dinner and I can remember thinking _wow_ , I can’t wait to take this boy apart.”

They’re trembling, now, and Zayn can’t help but think that he was so, so right when he called Liam _spring_ , unpredictable and golden in any light. He scrapes his teeth over a broad shoulder and waits while the hot water stings their bare skin.

Liam dances fingertips over his forearm, spelling out ‘ _hello’_ and ‘ _I miss you’_ and _‘tomorrow’_. “You spent this whole weekend trying to trick me with syllable answers,” he whispers. “I just want you to know that it didn’t work. It didn’t work today and it won’t work tomorrow and it will _never_ work, because I _know_ you. I know you’ll compromise on the coffee now you know why, and I know you used to sneak out before dawn to brush your teeth so we could kiss in the morning, and I know how long it takes for you to get irritated when we’re out for too long, and I know how you look when you laugh _ironically_ , and I know you’re just as obscenely infatuated with me as I am with you.”

The door creaks open and Louis and Mason shoving an ipod dock onto the counter with that kind of manic glee that foreshadows doom in their apartment. The Righteous Brothers play and Liam blushes, throwing a bar of soap at the speaker to switch to Maroon 5 _._

Liam twists to face him and his lips are swollen, and there are bruises Zayn didn’t leave all over his chest and an unknown intensity in his eyes. “I wanted you to hurt, today,” Liam whispers. “And I’m not going to apologise for that, yet. I wanted you to see that we’re something people write _sonnets_ about. We’re not a neutral. We’re a spectrum. And if you could please tell me – and not in Eliot or fucking Austen, just be _real_ for me—”

“You’re real, to me,” he says, just for the way Liam’s water-stained lips curl into a grin, “and I would write you sonnets if they weren’t—”

“Conformist and the cyanide of the creative mind,” he finishes, sounding so incredibly fond. “I listen, you know that.”

And then, quieter, when they’re brushing their lips together sweetly and Liam’s whimpering in some kind of masochistic pleasure, Zayn adds ‘ _I have three rules and I broke them all for you’_ because Zayn’s always loved spring, and now he loves Liam, too.

 

||

 

(they go on their very first date a week later on Valentine’s Day. Liam buys him a bouquet of roses and Zayn holds his hand over dinner and they snog in the back row during _Flight,_ and it feels a little like a new beginning when they whisper a synchronised ‘ _I love you’_ as they kiss goodnight on their doorstep)


End file.
